Thematic Bible: Insufficiency of

If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need to look for a second one, but God found something wrong with his people when he said, "Look! The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors at the time when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. Because they did not remain loyal to my covenant, I ignored them, declares the Lord. read more.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. Never again will everyone teach his neighbor or his brother by saying, "Know the Lord,' because all of them will know me, from the least important to the most important. For I will be merciful regarding their wrong deeds, and I will never again remember their sins." In speaking of a "new" covenant, he has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.

Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. For a tent was set up, and in the first part were the lamp stand, the table, and the bread of the Presence. This was called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was the part of the tent called the Most Holy Place, read more.
which had the gold altar for incense and the Ark of the Covenant completely covered with gold. In it were the gold jar holding the manna, Aaron's staff that had budded, and the Tablets of the Covenant. Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the place of atonement. (We cannot discuss these things in detail now.) When everything had been arranged like this, the priests always went into the first part of the tent to perform their duties. But only the high priest went into the second part, and then only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins committed by the people in ignorance. The Holy Spirit was indicating by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first part of the tent was still standing. This illustration for today indicates that the gifts and sacrifices being offered could not clear the conscience of a worshiper, since they deal only with food, drink, and various washings, which are required for the body until the time when things would be set right. But when the Messiah came as a high priest of the good things that have come, he went through the greater and more perfect tent that was not made by human hands and that is not a part of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood he went into the Most Holy Place once for all and secured our eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are unclean purifies them physically, how much more will the blood of the Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead actions so that we may serve the living God! This is why the Messiah is the mediator of a new covenant; so that those who are called may receive the eternal inheritance promised them, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the offenses committed under the first covenant.

For the Law, being only a reflection of the blessings to come and not their substance, can never make perfect those who come near by the same sacrifices repeatedly offered year after year. Otherwise, would they not have stopped offering them, because the worshipers, cleansed once for all, would no longer be aware of any sins? Instead, through those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year after year, read more.
for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. For this reason, the Scriptures say, when the Messiah was about to come into the world: "You did not want sacrifices and offerings, but you prepared a body for me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings you never took delight. Then I said, "See, I have come to do your will, O God' In the volume of the scroll this is written about me." In this passage he says, "You never wanted or took delight in sacrifices, offerings, burnt offerings, and sin offerings," which are offered according to the Law. Then he says, "See, I have come to do your will." He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By God's will we have been sanctified once and for all through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus, the Messiah. Day after day every priest stands and repeatedly offers the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, "he sat down at the right hand of God."

Now where there is forgiveness of these sins, there is no longer any offering for sin. Therefore, my brothers, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh),